ML052210402
| ML052210402 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vermont Yankee File:NorthStar Vermont Yankee icon.png |
| Issue date: | 08/03/2005 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| Byrdsong A T | |
| References | |
| 50-271-OLA, ASLBP 04-832-02-OLA, NRC-543, RAS 10244 | |
| Download: ML052210402 (26) | |
Text
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/oa4i Official Transcript of Proceedings Q
-NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station Docket Number:
50-271-OLA; ASLBP No.: 04-832-02-OLA Location:
(telephone conference)
DOCKETED USNRC August 8, 2005 (1:30pm)
OFFICE OF SECRETARY RULEMAKINGS AND ADJUDICATIONS STAFF Date:
Wednesday, August 3, 2005 Work Order No.:
NRC-543 Pages 677-700 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD (ASLB)
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TELECONFERENCE II In the Matter of 11 ENTERGY NUCLEAR VERMONT ll YANKEE LLC and ENTERGY ll NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, INC.1I (Vermont Yankee Nuclear ll Power Station) 1j Docket No. 50-271-OLA ASBLP No. 04-832-02-OLA Wednesday, August 3, 2005 The above-entitled matter came on for hearing, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m.
BEFORE:
ALEX S. KARLIN, Administrative Law Judge ANTHONY J. BARATTA, Administrative Law Judge LESTER S. RUBENSTEIN, Administrative Law Judge NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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APPEARANCES 2
On Behalf of the Applicant:
3 JAY E. SILBERG, ESQ 4
MATIAS TRAVIESO-DIAZ, ESQ S
DOUGLAS ROSINSKI, ESQ 6
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman 7
2300 N Street, N.W.
8 Washington, D.C. 20037-1128 9
(202) 663-8063 10 11 On Behalf of the State of Vermont. Department of 12 Public Service:
13 SARAH HOFMANN, ESQ 14 Special Counsel 15 Department of Public Service 16 112 State Street - Drawer 20 17 Montpelier, Vermont 05620-2601 18 (802) 828-3088 19 ANTHONY Z. ROISMAN, ESQ 20 National Legal Scholars Law Firm 21 84 East Thetford Road 22 Lyme, New Hampshire 03768 23 (603) 795-4245 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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On Behalf of the Intervenor, New England 2
Coalition:
3 JONATHAN M. BLOCK, ESQ 4
94 Main Street 5
P.O. Box 566 6
Putney, Vermont 05346-0566 7
(802) 387-2646 8
RAYMOND SHADIS 9
Staff Technical Advisor 10 New England Coalition 11 P.O. Box 98 12 Edgecomb, Maine 04556 13 14 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
15 BROOKE POOLE, ESQ 16 ANTONIO FERNANDEZ, ESQ 17 ROBERT WAGMAN, ESQ 18 Office of General Counsel 19 of:
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 20 Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 21 (301) 415-1740 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2
2:02 P.M.
3 JUDGE KARLIN:
Good afternoon, this is 4
Alex Karlin. Thank you everyone for joining us today.
5 This is a further conference in the ASLBP Docket No.
6 50-271 in the matter of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee 7
LLC and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
8 We are now on the record and I would like 9
each of the parties for the record to identify 10 themselves to the court reporter once again, please.
11 MR. SILBERG: For the Applicant Licensee, 12 this is Jay Silberg together with matias Travieso-Diaz 13 and Douglas Rosinski from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw 14 Pittman.
On the phone from Vermont Yankee are Craig 15 Nichols, Len Gucwa and Dave McElwee.
16 JUDGE KARLIN:
Thank you.
17 MR. ROISMAN:
For the Vermont Department 18 of Public Service, this is Tony Roisman and on the 19 phone with me is Sarah Hoffman.
20 JUDGE KARLIN:
Thank you.
21 MR. BLOCK: For the New England Coalition, 22 this is attorney John Block and on the phone with me 23 is the New England Coalition Staff Technical Advisor, 24 Raymond Shadis.
25 MS. POOLE:
Good afternoon, for the NRC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Staff this is Brooke Poole with the Office of the 2
General Counsel.
With me in the room are Robert 3
Weisman and Antonio Fernandez, also with OGC. Richard 4
Ennis, a Senior Project Manager in the Office of 5
Nuclear Reactor Regulation, he is the Project Manager 6
for the Vermont Yankee facility.
7 Richard Lobel, a Senior Reactor Engineer 8
with the Plant Systems Branch; Darrell Roberts, he's 9
the Section Chief for Project Directorate llB in NRR; 10 and Ed Miller, who is a Project Engineer with NRR.
11 I believe also Neil Sheehan may be on the 12 line for Region 1 Public Affairs.
13 MR. DORFLINE:
As well as Larry Dorfline 14 from NRC Region 1.
15 JUDGE KARLIN:
Okay, thank you.
Anyone 16 else?
17 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge Lester 18 Rubenstein.
19 JUDGE KARLIN:
Of
- course, Judge 20 Rubenstein, thank you.
But I think there's someone 21 else on the phone or is that it? Is there anyone else 22 on the line?
Okay, fine.
23 Again, here in the room in Rockville, 24 Maryland, we have Judge Baratta, Dr. Baratta is here.
25 Dr. Rubenstein is also on the lines, calling in from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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who knows where, California, I think.
2 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN: Tucson, Arizona today.
3 JUDGE KARLIN:
Tucson, Arizona.
Sorry.
4 Some idyllic location, I'm not sure.
And we have 5
Jonathan Rund here, Clerk to the Board is in the room 6
here in Rockville, Maryland, as well as Karin Valloch 7
who is our administrative assistant.
8 Thank you all for joining us.
The 9
purpose, let me just record the date here as August 10 3rd.
The location is not around the country, but we 11 are here in Rockville, Maryland.
The time is 2 p.m.
12 Eastern Time.
13 The protocol for this call as I think you 14 know, only the parties are going to be able to speak 15 or counsel for the parties and the purpose of the call 16 is really just to discuss the status of the case as 17 per our June 29th order. This is not a place for oral 18 argument on the motion by Entergy regarding NEC's 19 Contention 4. So we won't be doing that today.
20 What I thought we would do is proceed by 21 asking the staff, as we did in the June 29th order to 22 give us its sort of report and its best estimates, not 23 necessarily milestones as to when it thinks it will 24 have the draft SER, final SER and other documents 25 produced because they are for linchpins to the initial NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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scheduling order.
2 And once we have the Staff give us a 3
report, perhaps the Applicant may have some facts to 4
report to us as well regarding the status of RAI 5
answers and then we would have a bit of a discussion 6
to see if there's a way to manage this case in an 7
efficient way and move it along as best as possible.
8 So with that, I would ask Ms. Poole, 9
perhaps if you could give us some information on where 10 the Staff is on these things.
11 MS. POOLE:
Certainly.
Pursuant to the 12 June 29th order, as well as the initial scheduling 13 order, we have some milestones that we think might be 14 helpful.
15 As things currently stand, we plan to 16 provide a draft safety evaluation to the Advisory 17 Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
At the moment, the 18 date is October 25, 2005.
Now that is an aggressive 19 schedule given the recent submissions by the 20 Applicant.
Provided we are able to make that 21 schedule, we will then be able to have a series of 22 ACRS meetings in the next couple of months.
If that 23 10/21/05 milestone is met, then the ACRS Subcommittee 24 on Thermal Hydraulic Phenomena will consider the 25 application in a meeting on November 15th and 16th of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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this year.
That would be a two-day meeting held in 2
3 There will be a second meeting of the 4
Thermal Hydraulic Phenomena Subcommittee November 30th 5
through December 1st in Rockville.
The ACRS full 6
committee meeting on the application would then be 7
scheduled for December 8, 2005.
That would be a half 8
day meeting and the expectation thereafter would be a 9
letter from the ACRS to the Chairman on or about 10 November 15, 2005.
Of course, the Staff is not in 11 control of that milestone.
12 JUDGE KARLIN:
On that did you say 13 December 15th?
14 MS. POOLE:
I'm sorry, it's December, if 15 I misspoke.
16 JUDGE KARLIN:
Okay.
17 MS. POOLE: But in any event, the Staff is 18 not responsible and can't determine the --
how soon 19 after the meeting the letter will come out, but that's 20 fairly standard.
21 Subsequent to that, we would expect a 22 final safety evaluation on or about February 24, 2006 23 and in its initial scheduling order, the Licensing 24 Board also requested information about the 25 environmental assessment that would accompany this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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application.
Our current schedule for that would be 2
to publish a draft environmental assessment on 3
November 8, 2005 and if the staff concludes that an 4
EIS is not necessary, then a final EA would be 5
published on or about February 7, 2006.
6 Now I would say that this is an aggressive 7
schedule.
It could flip, depending upon the Staff's 8
consideration of the recent RAI responses and we, of 9
course, plan to provide, if the Board still wants us 10 to, we will continue to provide the monthly schedule 11 updates in which we'll keep everyone informed of any 12 changes that may take place.
13 JUDGE BARATTA:
This is Judge Baratta 14 here.
When do you think you'll be in a position to 15 have a little more confidence in that schedule?
I 16 sense there's a little hesitancy there.
I'm not 17 trying to rush you or anything like that.
I'm just 18 trying to get a sense of when we think we'll be able 19 to go forward with that.
20 MS. POOLE:
The hesitancy, I think, just 21 arises from the fact that we just received from RAIs 22 a considerable volume of RAI responses and those 23 have not yet been reviewed by the Staff for their 24 adequacy and I believe some additional responses are 25 still pending. Therefore, I'm hopeful that we will be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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able to reflect any schedule changes in the next 2
monthly update which would be due August 15th.
3 JUDGE BARATTA: Within the next two weeks.
4 MS. POOLE:
Hopefully.
May I take a 5
moment and confer with the Staff?
6 JUDGE BARATTA:
Yes.
7 MS. POOLE:
Just to make certain?
8 JUDGE BARATTA:
Yes.
9 MS. POOLE:
Thank you.
10 MR. BLOCK:
Judge Karlin?
11 JUDGE KARLIN:
Yes.
12 MR. BLOCK:
This is attorney John Block.
13 Might I introduce a question that you could consider 14 if you want to ask the Staff, that would be fine. I'm 15 wondering exactly how many open RAIs there at this 16 point.
Mr. Shadis and I tried to count them and we 17 lost count at around 150.
18 (Laughter.)
19 JUDGE KARLIN:
I think I was going to ask 20 something along that line, so thank you for that 21 point.
22 MR. BLOCK:
Okay, thank you.
23 MS. POOLE:
This is Brooke Poole.
I'm 24 sorry to interject, if I may.
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of the August 15th update, but we would have greater 2
confidence by the September 15th update.
3 JUDGE KARLIN:
Okay, this is helpful.
4 This information is helpful and it's in the nature of 5
these estimates that I think are valuable to what we 6
would like to see in the monthly report on the 15th.
7 We're not asking the Staff to commit to a 8
schedule, but to just give us your best estimate, 9
qualified as you see fit on the 15th and the 10 information you gave us today, for example, is quite 11 helpful to us trying to think through and understand 12 the timing of this matter and how we juggle it with 13 other cases we've got we're trying to handle at the 14 same time.
15 So if this kind of information could be 16 placed in the report on the 15th or at least your best 17 estimates of the SER and the draft SER and the EA 18 without all the intermediate steps, that would be 19 quite helpful.
20 MS. POOLE:
We'd be happy to do that.
21 JUDGE KARLIN:
Thank you.
You raised in 22 your report of July 15th, I think, the discussion of 23 this 200 RAI questions that you would have and be 24 posing and that obviously sounds like quite a number 25 and it sounds also like you've already posed --
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you already posed all those, that first round of RAIs?
2 MS.
POOLE:
Yes, that round is dated July 3
27, 2005 and a
nonproprietary version of those 4
questions, I believe was released on ADAMS today.
5 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 6
Rubenstein.
Are all those RAIs specific to the drying 7
to steam separation?
8 MS.
POOLE:
No.
9 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Or are those general 10 across the board?
11 MS.
POOLE:
They are across the board.
12 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Thank you.
13 JUDGE KARLIN:
Okay, and so you've posed 14 all the 200 or so you were referring to on July 15th 15 and they're on the record and you've gotten, I guess, 16 responses from them very recently or not?
Have you 17 gotten responses from those?
18 MS.
POOLE:
A partial set of responses was 19 submitted August 1st.
20 JUDGE KARLIN:
Okay, just a couple of days 21 ago.
22 MS.
POOLE:
That's correct.
23 MR.
SILBERG:
This is Jay Silberg.
We 24 submitted responses to 93 on Monday and responses to 25 the remainder, 107, are scheduled to go into tomorrow.
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JUDGE KARLIN:
All right, great.
That's 2
very helpful.
3 And of course, you really can't --
I guess 4
one of your hesitancies is you're expressing Ms. Poole 5
is that if there are any follow-up RAIs required 6
because maybe you didn't get quite the full answer or 7
the answer you wanted or whatever, there may be 8
additional round of RAIs.
9 MS. POOLE:
That's correct.
10 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
This is Judge 11 Rubenstein again.
Does the Subcommittee of the ACRS 12 have plans to conduct their meetings even if the draft 13 SER is submitted?
14 I'm trying to get a better sense of any 15 parallelism in the schedule.
16 MS. POOLE:
I'm sorry, could you repeat 17 your question?
I don't think I understand.
18 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN:
Sure.
Do you have a 19 sense as to whether the ACRS Subcommittee would 20 continue with their subcommittee meeting in Vermont 21 and prior to the submittal of the draft SER.
22 MS. POOLE:
I would guess not.
23 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so one could look 24 at the timing with adjustments for the ACRS schedule 25 itself and assume the whole thing slips week for week NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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with the submittal or nonsubmittal of the draft SER?
2 MS. POOLE: The slip would probably not be 3
quite week for week since the ACRS doesn't meet in 4
January.
If the slip is long enough, it could slip a 5
couple of months.
6 JUDGE RUBENSTEIN: Okay, that's what I was 7
trying to get at.
8 JUDGE KARLIN:
So the entire schedule is 9
somewhat dependent on the issuance of the draft SER on 10 October 21st and if that doesn't happen, then, of 11 course, the ACRS won't meet and discuss it and the SER 12 won't come out in the same time frame either.
- Okay, 13 that's helpful.
14 Anything else from the Staff that you'd 15 like to report or inform us about here?
16 MS. POOLE:
I don't believe so.
17 JUDGE KARLIN:
Okay, Mr. Silberg from 18 Entergy's perspective that you want to add here, 19 factually?
20 MR. SILBERG: No, I think we've answered, 21 we'll by tomorrow have responded to the questions the 22 vast majority of which don't relate to any of the 23 admitted contentions by the way.
24 JUDGE KARLIN:
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Very good.
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sounds a little bit more optimistic and moving along 2
and then perhaps we had anticipated.
Things seem to 3
be languishing, but perhaps will be moving along here.
4 Obviously, the Staff and the Applicant seem to be 5
working pretty diligently on some of this stuff, but 6
I was and I think the Board was concerned that if we 7
were going to be facing a long and indefinite sort of 8
delay while the Staff and Applicant had to work on 9
things, that there might be some action or appropriate 10 way to better manage everyone's time on this.
11 Right now, sounds like there's something 12 going to be moving along relatively quickly in 13 October, two months from now, that sort of thing. But 14 under these circumstances is there any action from the 15 Board in terms of adjustment to the scheduling order 16 or other activities that might better help us manage 17 this case, given the facts we've received just now?
18 I'd like to hear from the Applicant first, I guess, on 19 this issue and then from the State and then Mr. Block 20 from NEC and then from the Staff.
21 MR. SILBERG:
There are two things I'd 22 say, Mr. Chairman.
First, you now have before you a 23 briefing on the summary disposition motion on NEC 24 Contention 4 which is generally ripe for decision of 25 the NEC's answer came in yesterday.
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JUDGE KARLIN:
Yes.
2 MR.
SILBERG:
We also at least are 3
considering whether to raise with the Staff and the 4
parties, excuse me while a police car goes by --
the 5
possibility of perhaps going ahead with litigation on 6
some of these pending issues apart from the overall 7
SER EA schedule once the staff has reached a position 8
on those issues.
To the extent that a contention is 9
not necessarily bound up with the reasons for a delay 10 in SER issuance, it might be feasible to break the 11 schedule linkage that is now I think in most people's 12 contemplation between the SER and the hearing.
13 We have not addressed that with the Staff 14 or NEC or the State, but that's something at least 15 that has been in our mind, depending on how the rest 16 of the review process goes.
17 JUDGE KARLIN:
Okay. That is permissible 18 under 2.332B. Hearings on issues can be commenced in 19 advance of the SER if that would expedite the 20 proceeding.
21 All right, Mr. Roisman, anything from the 22 State?
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which I think the Board was understandably concerned 2
about and certainly so were we.
3 The obvious disadvantage of fragmenting 4
the hearing process is that it can only be a time 5
saver if there is some substantial amount of time that 6
is going to pass that would otherwise be completely 7
lost.
8 I don't see that we're in that situation.
9 I think if the Staff had come back and reported that 10 it was not until the end of 2006 that they thought 11 they'd see a draft SER or something as extreme as 12 that, then yes, maybe we could think about doing 13 something alternatively.
14 In addition, the Staff would still be 15 submitting the SER in evidence in the proceeding, the 16 ACRS letter would still be coming in, so the hearing, 17 if you would, would have to be replicated. We've got 18 a --
at least from the State's perspective, we have a 19 relatively narrow set of issues that I don't think 20 will be well dealt with in terms of just human 21 resources and efficiency if we hear it, part say at 22 the end of this year and part again at the --
say of 23 March of next year.
24 So given that I think there's relatively 25 little to be saved in terms of time, if any, and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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likelihood that we might actually lengthen the process 2
by splitting the issue up, I think the Board should 3
continue with what it's already ruled in the initial 4
scheduling order and wait and see should the Staff 5
come back on that September 15th date and report some 6
dramatic change in this proposed schedule.
I don't 7
see reason to seriously consider the fragmentation 8
approach.
9 JUDGE KARLIN:
All right, and I didn't 10 hear Mr. Silberg is making a motion to that effect.
11 He just thought that a consideration that might be 12 worth thinking about at some point.
13 All right, very helpful, Mr. Roisman.
14 Mr. Block?
15 MR. BLOCK:
Yes.
I would tend to agree 16 with Mr. Roisman on a number of points. Our position 17 is that there's a higher priority when we're 18 considering the remaining process and schedule to do 19 this with the primary consideration on a reasonable 20 assurance of public health and safety and due process 21 to citizens' groups such as ours and that I'm sure 22 that that's high in the Board's mind.
23 However, Entergy's plans and their desire 24 to perhaps accelerate the schedule we think should be 25 put in a perspective.
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much single-handedly extended this schedule up to this 2
time and the idea that we would develop a breakaway 3
here because it suits them and maybe they have 4
considerations about their refueling outage or 5
whatever is on their mind doesn't seem reasonable.
6 After all, they filed the application in 7
September 2003 and it didn't conform to the EPU review 8
standard.
And as a
- result, following their 9
preliminary review in November of 2003, the Staff 10 asked them to rewrite major portions of the 11 application.
They did that, but they didn't submit 12 their rewrite until January 2004.
And that adds 13 almost five months to the review schedule.
14 So the history of this application seems 15 to be that with individual requests for additional 16 information not yielding full and appropriate answers, 17 the Staff has been obliged to repeat their questions 18 again and again. And these questions such as the ones 19 involving thermal hydraulics weren't really 20 satisfactorily answered by Entergy when they were 21 asked in November 2004, nor when they were repeated in 22 March of 2005.
23 And I know that Entergy subsequently asked 24 for a meeting with the NRC to propose a new 25 methodology for dealing with those issues. I think it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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was May 9th of 2005.
But we have in front of us a 2
most recent round of RAIs including outstanding 3
issues, not satisfactorily addressed in the initial 4
application, in supplements 1 through 20 and in the 5
more recent supplements, 25, 26 and 28.
6 More recently, on June 30th, Entergy 7
proposed dispensing with the analysis that it didn't 8
provide in November and March by simply establishing 9
a limiting condition of operation.
The fact is that 10 no analysis has been provided to show that the 11 limiting condition of operation would bound the issue 12 in question, that is, GE fuel failures. And you know, 13 this is, I think, typical of the licensing approach 14 they've taken.
You can look at the situation that 15 took place with the MU uprate of Pilgrim in 2003.
16 There, the administrative target of the NRC was six 17 months review which became an il-month review.
18 JUDGE KARLIN:
Mr. Block, I think that's 19 been very helpful, but I think you're going a little 20 bit off course here.
21 Unless there's something specific you 22 suggest in terms of adjusting the schedule --
23 MR. BLOCK:
I am just suggesting with all 24 due respect, Judge, that when the Board considers 25 what's fair under the circumstances in terms of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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accelerating the schedule by breaking it apart or 2
doing anything else, that they put in perspective who 3
has been in control here over the speed at which 4
things are moving and consider, for instance, that for 5
people like ourselves we're catching up on discovery 6
supplement five, reading as fast as we can, moving 7
into six, to do our summary judgment with piles of 8
material here.
9 JUDGE KARLIN:
All right --
10 MR. BLOCK:
And I think that in fairness 11 when a proposal is made or even just proffered briefly 12 as Mr. Silber did, it certainly arouses our fear that 13 the next step will be something that puts us on a 14 rapid treadmill that we think is undeserved under the 15 circumstances.
16 JUDGE KARLIN:
All right, thank you, Mr.
17 Block.
18 Ms. Poole?
19 MS. POOLE:
In response to the Board's 20 question regarding the initial scheduling order, the 21 Staff does not propose any changes or have any 22 questions about that at this time. As to Mr. Silber's 23 suggestion, I would just say I think obviously 24 breaking apart the issues as contemplated under the 25 rules and the Staff, we considered it in theory.
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At the moment, we're fully occupied in 2
preparing the draft safety evaluation and would be 3
unable to put resources toward that at this time. But 4
I think we would discuss it in the future if it became 5
a topic that the other parties and the Board wanted to 6
discuss.
7 That's all I have.
Thank you.
8 JUDGE KARLIN: Thank you. Let me note one 9
thing.
We, in our initial scheduling order, we did 10 not include and it was conscious at the time, a 11 deadline for filing of late contentions or untimely 12 contentions or new contentions.
13 We note, however, that in the April 20, 14 2005 Federal Register where the Commission established 15 some model milestones, they did establish a model that 16 would have deadline for untimely and new contentions.
17 I don't know that I see any particular reason and I 18 haven't discussed this with fellow Members of the 19 Board why we need to amend the ISO to add a deadline 20 for late, untimely or new contentions.
But I think 21 we've been operating on the approach that there is a 22 short time frame and those things must be filed very 23 promptly, I believe, even a 10-day rule might apply 24 under 2.323.
So unless anyone thing otherwise, if 25 there are additional or new contentions or late-filed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
699 1
contentions that need to be filed, they need to be 2
done very promptly.
The absence of a formal deadline 3
in this thing is not going to mean we're going to 4
allow things to just wait until the end. Apparently, 5
there's a lot going on here, a lot of RAIs, a lot of 6
answers to RAIs and as the Intervenors see and follow 7
that, presumably you should be alert, as Mr. Shadig, 8
Mr. Block has indicated here, following this and file 9
something promptly if you feel there's an issue that 10 you have to raise.
11 Is there anything else that the parties 12 think need to be covered at this point?
13 All
- right, I
thank everyone for 14 participating.
15 (Off the record.)
16 JUDGE KARLIN:
We will go back on the 17 record.
18 MR. SHADIS:
This is Raymond Shadis with 19 the New England Coalition and just as a matter of 20 clarification with respect to late-filed contentions 21 our understanding was that it was 30 days from proper 22 notice. Is there some other standard to which we must 23 adhere?
24 JUDGE KARLIN: I'm not going to --
I don't 25 think we're going to try to rule on that at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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700 1
moment.
I think we just have to refer to the 2
regulations themselves. We have no deadline for late-3 filed contentions in the initial scheduling order.
I 4
think there are time frames set --
well, there are 5
several rules that apply, 2.309(c) for untimely 6
contentions where a motion is required, I believe.
7 Also 2.309(f), (f)(1) and (f)(2) for amended and for 8
new contentions.
I don't know whether --
I don't 9
believe that they set forth any specific time frame.
10 Certainly, I don't think they say 30 days, 11 but there is a rule 2.323 which does say motions need 12 to be filed within 10 days of the action or issue upon 13 which they're based.
Many Boards establish a 30-day 14 rule for late-filed contentions. We do not have that 15 rule in this case.
16 All I'm saying is they need to be timely.
17 MR. SHADIS:
Thank you, Your Honor.
18 JUDGE KARLIN:
Are there any other 19 questions while we're back on the record or issues?
20 Okay, I didn't think so.
Thank you.
21 Unless the court reporter has any other questions he 22 has of you, I think we're --
are call is closed.
23 (Whereupon, at 2:33 p.m.,
the 24 teleconference was concluded.)
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Entergy Nuclear Vermont
- Yankee, LLC and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
Pre-hearing Conference Docket Number:
50-271-OLA and ASLBP No.04-832-02-OLA Location:
(Telephone conference) were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
John Mongoven Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 vww.neaIrgross.com